reheating frozen meals

[starbyfar7]

this may be a very silly question.. so excuse the preggo brain drain..

i plan on freezing atleast a week's worth of casseroles/lasagna/easy meals to get us through that first week when the baby arrives. my question is.. if you have a huge lasagna or casserole etc frozen in tupperware.. how do you reheat it without ruining it? obviously i would need to transfer it to a baking dish first.. do you put tin foil underneath so that it doesn't stick to the plastic or what am i missing here?? also, do you actually cook the meal and then freeze or just have it totally prepared (sans cooking) and then freeze it to cook later??

[ollyoxenfree]

For something like lasagna, I prepare it and cook it and then freeze it in the baking dish. I use the Pyrex glass baking dishes that can go from freezer to oven. They have a plastic cover. You can also buy disposable foil baking pans, and some come with covers just like take-out containers. If you use these, I would overwrap them with cling wrap and/or tin foil to get a good seal before they go in the freezer. 

I also prepare marinated chicken breasts, pork tenderloin, etc. and freeze them uncooked, sitting in the marinade. I used to use plastic Ziploc freezer bags. They were really great for this job, since they don't take up much room in the freezer. It's one of the few plastic items that I really miss since I started reducing our use of plastics. Now I use Pyrex glass dishes with covers for them. Once they thaw, I use a grill pan or saute pan to cook the meat. 

Soup goes into Mason jars with enough head-room to expand. So one batch of soup may fill up 3 or 4 or more Mason jars, depending on the size of the batch. 

HTH. Good luck with the baby! 

[velochic]

I cook most of the way through, (including lasagne) cool, then IQF the portions on a sheet pan.  I freeze the portions - I never freeze and entire casserole as I don't have enough refrigerator space to thaw an entire casserole safely before baking again.  Once the portions are frozen, you can store them however you want (wrapped in butcher paper or vacuum sealed, etc.) and they won't stick.

To reheat, I just put a portion (or more) in an oven-proof dish (I have Corning Ware dishes in all sorts of shapes and sizes) and heat through in an oven.